The Most Useful Breakfast Hack of 2016 Will Make Your Avocado Toast Easier

Breakfast, as a concept, can never be bad — but it can always be better. It’s a pastime of the internet to stumble upon and craft new and inventive ways to do every day activities (read: “hacks”) and breakfast perhaps benefits the most from this tinkering. There are countless ways you’ve been doing breakfast bereft of ingenuity, but when it comes to the best breakfast hack of 2016, our pick goes a discovery that goes well beyond your morning routine.

Two months ago, Reddit userembrionyc posted to r/lifehacks about something they tried once that changed their life: putting an avocado in a beer koozie. This contraption was not for eating,but for ripening, since they discovered that the trendy green fruit was perfectly ripe the next day. Sure, you could do it with a paper bag. But a beer koozie! That's genius. This is good news for those who find themselves buying four avocados and inevitably missing the golden hour when they’re good to eat. Too early, and they’re too hard to be mashed on toast or whipped into a guac. Too late, and they’re no longer edible. Part of the reason avocado tastes so good is because of the smugness of actually nailing down the period in which you were able to consume it.

But in 2016, this stopped being such a chore. Putting an avocado in a beer koozie does the trick in a matter of hours, and another Reddit user explained why. “Some fruits release a gas that makes ripening faster,” they wrote. “The more gas it absorbs, the faster it ripens.” This means that it allgoes down in the koozie, where the avocado releases and absorbs its own gas(like me after Chipotle am I right! Sorry) allowing it to ripen at an accelerated rate.

The scientists reading this post (hello, scientists) might note that what works in a beer koozie would be just as effective in something like a plastic bag. In fact, other Reddit users have taken the hack a step further,saying that while the koozie hack is fun, “it is not doing it as efficiently asa bag, or a bag with something in it that is known for producing copious amounts of ethylene gas, such as, a banana.” A ‘nanner might just be the secret ingredient, with a user adding, “A banana in a bag combined with whatever you want to ripen usually works well.”

This especially comes in handy now, because while this was a goodyear for avocado ripening, the same cannot be said for its harvest. Back in October, Mexican avocado growers went on strike, and California’s avos suffered at the hands of draught. You really can’t afford not to use this hack, since a wasted avocado is doubly precious in these trying times.

This isn’t the only hack you need for a successful breakfast —eggs also had a moment in 2016. Avoid overcooking your scramble by taking it off the burner while they’re still runny,allowing residual heat to finish the job. If you’re more of an omelet person,there’s a surefire way to get the perfect flip every single time. Or, get really out of the box with this kooky way of tricking your brain into thinking eggs are cheese.